LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Go ahead and blame the kid who dropped the touchdown pass. It certainly is easy.

Everything, after all, was right in Mark Harrison’s hands in the fourth quarter. The come-from-behind victory. The unblemished Big East record. It was all sailing through this crisp Kentucky night, riding on a perfect spiral in an imperfect game for the visiting team.

Harrison just had to catch it, turn toward the Louisville end zone and run the last 38 yards for the score. The football had hit him between the 8 and 1 on his jersey, then it fell to the ground with a sickening thud — and so did the feeling that something special was happening for this Rutgers team.

“I feel like it’s my fault,” Harrison said in the visiting locker room at Papa John Cardinal Stadium, where the 16-14 loss to Louisville felt like a raw wound that won’t heal for a while. “I blame myself.”

Except it’s not that easy, of course. Because it wasn’t just the receiver who dropped the pass that mattered. It was the decision to start the quarterback who threw it to him, too.

Because a game like this was inevitable from Gary Nova. Maybe it came next weekend against West Virginia. Maybe it came later in the season. It almost came last week, when two big mistakes from the true freshman quarterback were erased by a late blocked field-goal attempt against Navy.

Nova is a true freshman, and he made mistakes typical of a true freshman Friday night. He badly overthrew receivers on his first two possessions, both leading to Louisville interceptions. He missed on two long passes to open targets before the Harrison drop, one overthrown and one underthrown.

The Scarlet Knights had a chance to go 3-0 in the Big East Friday night, which would have given them two more victories than any other league rival. They would have had the inside track to that first BCS bowl, especially with the supposedly mighty Mountaineers getting clobbered in Syracuse Friday night.

Now you wonder: Did head coach Greg Schiano risk his best chance at the Big East title trying to develop a young quarterback?

“Had Mark Harrison caught that ball, I don’t think you would have asked that question,” Schiano said. “Did Gary Nova have anything to do with that? No.”

Schiano is right, of course. Winning covers up all the warts. It’s the only stat that truly matters for a quarterback, and until Friday night, Nova hadn’t lost a game since the eighth grade.

Still: A steadier quarterback wins that game for Rutgers Friday night. Chas Dodd does not have half the talent that Nova does, but he has a year’s worth of experience already. He’s a proven commodity.

Schiano, for the third straight week, said he considered switching to Dodd. The sophomore, who started the season opener, was yanked after one bad half in Syracuse. He hasn’t stepped on the field since.

“If we thought Chas gave us a better chance, we would have played him,” Schiano said. “When you’re a coach, you make decisions. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they don’t.”

Look, it was more than quarterback play that cost Rutgers Friday. A veteran placekicker, San San Te, missed two chip-shot field-goal attempts. A sturdy defense failed to register a single sack and, much more damning, completely forgot how to tackle in the second half.

But the quarterback situation is an indictment of the program as a whole. It’s not unusual for programs to start true freshmen. Louisville did tonight. Texas and Florida have this season. Michigan and Penn State did last year.

To start a different one three years in a row? That’s a problem, and that’s a cycle Schiano has to break. Rutgers has gone from Tom Savage to Dodd and now to Nova, failing to develop a player at the most important position on the field since Mike Teel graduated.

Nova looks like he’ll be the answer eventually. But one year ago today, he was watching the second half from the sideline as Don Bosco trashed Passaic Tech. He has a strong arm and a lot of toughness.

Except, with a true freshman quarterback, it usually does happen. Go ahead and blame the receiver who dropped the sure touchdown pass, but remember, a game like this from the kid who threw it was inevitable.